Roadtrip

I should say that the roads in the country have gotten better since the first time I came here. I remember 10 years ago a tract in the road where two signs “beginning highway” and “end highway” were spaced by about 100 yards: the length of a bridge. Now a good portion of the route in the plains is a decent 2 lanes highway: high oil prices means that the local government can invest in infrastructures. Of course all this is sometimes still done in the “Venezuelan way”. At one point the highway was suddenly blocked by a “end highway” sign with painted tires barrier, even though the road was perfectly good after the signs (see photo below). Some cars were actually going around the barrier continuing in the supposedly ended highway as if no sign was there. We didn’t have the guts and took the exit to the parallel normal road.

Venezuela (Dec 20, 2007)

After some miles and a stop in a local gas station / rest area we realized that most of the cars were actually finding their way back to the highway using unpaved “unofficial” entrances climbing the shoulders of the highway. We followed a bunch of these cars and after almost turning back as the truck in front of us got stuck in the too steep slope, we re-entered the “closed” highway which continued for the next few hundred of miles. I am still not sure what happened, but the leading theory is that the owner of the rest area along the old road, cut out of business by the highway, bribed some local power to have the highway temporarily closed to divert the Holiday traffic to his gas station. But of course these are just conjectures; as everybody knows there is no corruption in Venezuela.